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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Evidently Alonzo Mourning has written a new book. Evidently he has also thrown out some interesting accusations about his college recruitment:

But first, in the publicity department, there is another matter that will need to be aired out. Mourning writes that various colleges - specifically Maryland, Syracuse, Georgia Tech and Virginia - recruited him with offers of fancy clothes and dinners, and that "everyone understood I could have gotten money at any of these places."

Obviously, you're going to hear about it. A guy's got to sell books, so he needs a hook. Evidently the compelling story of a big man overcoming life threatening kidney disease isn't enough. Well, multiple personality disorder wasn't enough for any of the Hershal's, so you need something more juicy.

We went through the whole Sebastian Telfair accusations, which proved to be false. Now this junk. Of course there's no proving or disproving anything.

Hope you sell some dead trees my man. I'm sure part of the story is how he rose above the traps of stardom to pick Georgetown, where all they could offer him was a scholarship and a gym. Yeah, right.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Well, I pretty much blew up my Blog Poll and started over. I decided to change my philosophy to more of a "resume" ranking. If you're undefeated, you're pretty much going to be ranked amongst all the other undefeated teams. If you have one less, you're in the next grouping. None of this one-loss, hang around the top 10 crud at this point in the season. Therefore, USC, UGAg, UF, Wisc and Ohio State all get to occupy between 10-20. When the inevitable happens and the current undefeated teams blow up, we'll get everyone back in what people think is their rightful place.

Friday, September 26, 2008

This weekend could very well be one of the most important recruiting weekends of the year for Paul Hewitt. As you may know, Hewitt and his staff have secured verbal commitments from four outstanding high school players:

Just the four guys already committed were enough for Rivals.com to rank Tech as the #4 class in the nation. If they added Favors, who many consider the best player in the country, it would certainly move them into the top 3. Add Boynton as well (highly unlikely though), and it very well could be the #1 class.

So this weekend becomes a crucial one to slam home this recruiting class. It's generally believed that Favors wants to stay "close to home", although the last reports I saw had his final 6 down to GT, UGAg, FSU, Memphis, KY and UConn.

There are some unconfirmed reports that some NBA players who happen to be former Georgia Tech players, just might be on campus as well. At the end of the day, on a visit like this, particularly when there is no home football game, you need to pull out the stops. I am sure some of the current commits will be there as an unofficial visit as well.

Here is some Favors highlights for your mass consumption

As far as Boynton goes, here's my advice - if he commits to Georgia Tech, consider it a complete and utter shock. I'm not saying we're out of the picture. It's no accident that Favors and Boynton are there together the same weekend. However, Boynton has been uber-targeted by the weasel, and coming off the glow us his Olympic rat cheese, Coach K has to be considered the front-runner to get this guy. If you want to read a long, interesting article about Boynton's recruitment, ESPN had this interesting story from a week or so ago.

Boynton is basically a offensive scoring machine who has no fear unleashing a shot under any situation from anywhere. If he goes to Duke, we'll be glad when and if he's one-and-done. He's going to be tough to handle for anyone.

BEST HIT: Pats linebacker Gary Guyton gave Davone Bess a reason to rethink returning another kick with a shot to the sternum in the second quarter that dropped him like a papaya.

DURANT BROOKS - BETTER DAYDurant Brooks had a better day last week punting, saving his job for another day. However, it wasn't a totally clean performance, as he "iced" his own kicker at one point, incurring the wrath of his head coach.

Durant Brooks, on getting screamed at by Zorn for calling for a snap too early on a field goal: I thought he was going to throw his headphones on me. He scared me. He matured me, how about that. I grew up a little bit after. He came in the locker room, of course we won, it was a big kick, but he came in, he asked if I was all right, because he gave me one. He gave me a knocking.

Zorn on the same:The reason I was so mad, was the referee was standing over the ball. The official, Mr. Official was standing over the ball. And [Brooks] asked for the ball. And, you know, I was thinking to myself, 'Why are you asking for the ball?' It was like we iced our own kicker. We iced ourselves. And then we missed the field goal. So I was pretty bent out of shape.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Not to get away from the world of Georgia Tech, but I found this video entertaining. I'm not a big fan of Jim Cramer, except his first book, which was solid with investing fundamentals.

Having said that, check out this video from Cramer's show from August 2007 - about one year ago, talking about the mortgage problem. He says we have "Armageddon" coming and talks about Goldman, Bear Sterns and how "these firms are going to go out of business".

Of course this is the same guy that said Bear Sterns was fine, and gets as much or more wrong as he does right. In fact, he's generally bullish on stocks. I just thought his rant was entertaining.

Well, after 4 weeks of picks, things are starting to shake out a little bit, although the standings are still close enough for anyone to make a move. I've climbed up to #13 by hitting 10/12 games. I missed Miami and NCST's victories but hit the rest. So here are the standings for the top 20:

Monday, September 22, 2008

It was a long day Saturday... a long wonderful day. It started at about 7:00am, when we woke up our three girls and made breakfast. It ended with our clan pulling up into our driveway at about 8:30pm that night. In between was a glorious, fun day at Bobby Dodd Stadium. We arrived just after kickoff, missing the first drive, which would prove to be Josh Nesbitt's last. Hamstrings are the darndest things. They can be better in one week or 6 months.

My 4 and 6 year old girls had a good time in section 218, part of the "Jackets Nest". Their favorite part? The cheerleaders of course..... and "the Bug" (that would be Buzz). Their faces reddened as the day wore on, the sun shining brightly on a mostly cloudless afternoon. It was their first time at BDS. I asked them last night if they wanted to go again sometime, and with baited breath, I heard those magic words I was longing to hear - "yeah daddy". Honestly, they were troopers, considering the heat, and the fact that every Minute Maid Frozen Lemonade stand ran out of Frozen Lemonade at Halftime. That was a bit of a crusher, because $4 Dove bars just aren't the same as frozen lemonade on a hot day.

I'm sure you're more interested in the game. However, when you're there with your wife and young kids, it's hard to focus completely on the happenings on the field. That's fine by me though, as Saturday was about the family first. So here are my stream of consciousness thoughts.

OFFENSIVE DOMINATIONLet's take stock of a few things. 1) Mississippi State's head coach, Sylvester Croom, said that he and his staff knew exactly what we were going to do and that we did nothing Saturday that surprised them - nothing they had not prepared for..... 2) They had practiced against "the wishbone" for more than one week - they had run option in practice during fall camp - everyday. Croom even said they started preparing for this game at the beginning of summer with his staff....... 3) Mississippi State has (had) a good SEC caliber defense. They did hold Auburn to 3 points, and this is the team that won 8 games last year and went to a bowl, and beat Auburn and Arkansas. Oh yeah, and their head coach is the reigning SEC Coach of the Year in the best conference in football. 4) Georgia Tech's starting stud QB goes out on the first series, leaving a true freshman to run this complex, precision offense.

So you take all that into consideration, and it's eye-opening that Georgia Tech won 38-7. It's mind-boggling that we ran up 500 yards of total offense, including 438 on the ground. It's whacko that 10 different guys carried the ball, and none of them had more than 9 carries. At least 4 guys had over 50 yards on the ground.

Saturday was about complete offensive domination. Players executed more effectively both on the inside and on the perimeter. Many more key blocks were made that just didn't happen last week. Paul Johnson's playcalling was masterful. True freshman Jaybo Shaw handled himself and the offense very well. It is such an incredible feeling to know that you have some confidence if your #1 QB goes down, especially in this offense.

We racked up 500 total yards, including 438 on the ground. That now places the Jackets #3 in the nation in rushing, only behind Navy and Oklahoma State. In essence, Paul Johnson has two of the top three rushing offenses in the country right now.

WHAT ABOUT THE DEFENSE?I have mixed feelings about the defense. On one hand, we held them to 7 points, and that's all that really matters. On the other hand we gave up over 400 yards in total offense to Miss St. On the other hand, our starters really only gave up 200-250 of those yards, mostly in the 1st half, and 70+ of them on one broken running play. Paul Johnson challenged the defense at halftime and they rose to the challenge in the 3rd quarter, until most of the starters were removed before the 4th quarter started.

I'm still a little unsure about this defense. We rely on our D-Line to get pressure and we blitz a lot less than I thought we would. I was never expecting Tenuta-like blitzing, but I just don't see as much aggressive play going after QB's outside the front four. I'll say this much - I don't think our secondary has been challenged yet. Let's face it - we haven't faced even an average passing team yet. Perriloux had nobody to protect him or anyone to throw it to. BC's Crane was lost against us and was a not even close to making BC fans forget Matt Ryan. Tyrod Taylor didn't complete a pass over 10 yards and beat us with his feet and some untimely penalties and turnovers, not his 43 yards passing. Beamer never opened the playbook for him.

Miss St was more effective in the passing game, but let's put a little perspective on the Dogs - they did lose to Louisiana Tech, the new home of Taylor Bennett. So I still have unanswered questions. It looked to me like the corners were playing soft again, willing to give up the short pass. I still think our banged up linebacking core is a step or two behind the standards of years past. There just isn't enough consistency.

There could be another explanation. With the game well in hand early, DC Dave Wommack may have decided to call off the dogs and hold back on some of his tricks for a future opponent. It seems to be a Paul Johnson trademark that he has things up his sleeve we haven't seen. Maybe he wants his defense to keep some Aces up their sleeves as well.

One thing we might say is that our defense could be considered a "big play" defense. We talk about big plays on offense, but what about the goal-line stops, the INT's, the 4th down stuffs, the fumble recoveries? This defense does generally bow up in the red zone and so far they have a knack for creating turnovers. Some of that is the putrid offenses we've seen. Miss St handed some of those stops to us on a silver platter. Now, if Tech can just force more 3-and-outs further back on the field, we'll really be cooking.

Again, hard to complain about the defense when you only give up 7 points late against the 2nd / 3rd string. Paul Johnson put it best - giving up over 400 yards of offense is not a good defensive performance.

TURNOVERS KEYYou want to know why we had no turnovers today? We fell on the loose balls before the Dogs did. We can't lose sight of the fact that we put the ball on the ground three times Saturday. We were just fortunate to get all of them back. I would not classify our turnover performance as better this week. We just had the bounces go our way. That's how I see it. I have no confidence that we've "taken a step" to improve.... yet. I still believe we are going to be frustrated with our ability to control the ball. There's no magic cure here. In 4 games, we've fumbled 14 times and been fortunate to lose it only 7.

INTERIOR O-LINE - NEW BLOCKING SCHEME? NEW FORMATION?There was some online scuttlebutt that maybe the Jackets switched up the blocking scheme on the interior of the Oline, and that was a primary driver in the success of fending off the Miss St DLine. I cannot confirm this, although I'd welcome any comments for those in the know. On his post-game interview, Johnson said that they unveiled a "new formation that we'd kind of been saving, that gave us a little jump on the toss early on". Whatever changed, it seemed to be working more effectively. I don't remember seeing DT's bust through the line untouched. I don't remember seeing QB's tackled before they could get the snap. Miss St's massive DT was the SEC lineman of the week against Auburn and I think we held him to one tackle. Overall, those guys in the trenches were more effective, for whatever the reason. Kudo's.

So what was the new formation? I did notice we went away from our "balanced" formation on a number of occasions. In fact, Jonathan Dwyer's 88 yard TD run came on a counter-option play where we were over-weighted on the left side, along with thre Miss St's defense. Not sure about the formation comparison, but that counter-option is the play that Dwyer took 43 yards for the game winner against BC and also resulted in one of those TD's against Jax St. It's been a very effective way to break open a big play if enough guys make their blocks downfield. In every case, Lucas Cox has gone in motion from right-to-left as the A-Back, only to change direction and head back right as the lead blocker for Dwyer on the pitch.

PJ COVERS THE SPREADFor the bettors out there, Tech has covered the spread in every game so far. On another note, the "over / under" for total points in this game between both teams was 37 (I think). We managed to eclipse that all by our lonesome.

DON'T GET TOO ENAMORED WITH THE "SYSTEM"It's going to be easy to focus on nothing but "the system". The media is going to it constantly, particularly the opposing teams media. Let's not lose sight of the fact that Paul Johnson and his staff are fiery competitors and winners. Johnson won't accept anything less and nobody will be harder on him than he will. Clearly he had this team ready and focused, and he had Croom's boys on their heels and in a state of confusion all day. The system doesn't make the coach. The coach makes the system. The system has nothing to do with discipline, hard work, buy-in and aggressive play. That comes from the heart of each player in combination with a leader they would go to battle with.

FOCUS, INTENSITY, PHYSICALThose were the three words Johnson gave his team last week. I'd say they were the right three.

THERE IS NO QB CONTROVERSYAcross the discussion boards, there were some interesting debates about Jaybo vs Josh, and who should be our QB moving forward. When Josh went out early, Jaybo stepped in and never missed a beat. So what will Coach Johnson do? I think the answer is simple - play Josh Nesbitt when he's healthy again. It's that simple. Jaybo does the little things well and seems to have a better grasp of the mesh/tuck/pitch sequence. Of course, you would expect that since he's a coach's son who ran the exact same system with the exact same terminology in high school.

Josh has had a steeper learning curve in terms of the offense. However, when you compare "upside", it seems clear early on that Josh Nesbitt is more athletic and has a better arm. Nesbitt can do things Shaw can't. We saw it against BC and VT. He makes things happen with his feet when the pocket breaks down. Shaw is quick, but the damage he does with his feet come within the course of the play after making the proper read, and doing it quickly. If things break down, we haven't seen a significant scrambling ability from Shaw.

In terms of throwing strength and accuracy, it's probably too early to tell from the games, but I still have to give the edge to Nesbitt here. Time will tell, but Nesbitt has shown more true "dual-threat" capability so far.

So Shaw might be the better fit now, but Nesbitt might have the bigger upside, so it's worth getting Nesbitt every snap possible. Nesbitt has the potential to be the next Tommy Frazier, possibly the best option QB that ever played the game.

Andrew Gardner's performance netted him his second ACC lineman of the week award.

AREAS OF CONCERNAs always there are still areas to get better. Kick-off coverage needs improvement. The secondary needs to step up more effectively against the pass. We still put the ball on the ground too often. We are still incredibly penalty prone.

VIRGINIA TECH CONTROLS COASTAL RACEWith VaTech's win over UNC, they now control their own destiny. They're 2-0 with wins over GT and UNC. We need VT to get knocked off at least a couple of times, and soon. You know, people were so ready to write those guys off and they just win. All that QB controversy stuff last year, and who goes and wins the ACC title? Beamer is an outstanding coach with a very good coaching staff. They get their players ready. Losing to them just the way we did just might be a sting that continues to linger as the season progresses.CITRUS BOWL REPS AT THE GAMEEvidently it's not too early to start enjoying comp tickets to college football games. The Citrus Bowl is the stadium where the Champs Sports Bowl and Capital One Bowl are held, and per reports from the Hive, they had some reps at our game.

Time again for our guest blogger segment. Here is a Q&A with Mississippi State blogger Jeremy Flint who runs the "Mississippi State Sports Blog". Jeremy and I tie in the race for creative college blog names.So here are Jeremy's answers to 4 of my questions.

1. Georgia Tech fans may not know a lot about your program. We've faced some strong defenses the last two weeks with Boston College and Virginia Tech, but holding Auburn to 3 points is impressive. Is your D that good, or is Auburn's offense just too new to be effective? What is the strongest part of the D?

Through the first 3 games, our defense is ranked 20th overall in the NCAA, higher than Boston College and Virginia Tech. Our tackles are both playing very well right now. Jesse Bowman was named Defensive Lineman of the Week by the SEC after the Auburn game. Our safeties are also a key feature, especially FS Derek Pegues.

Our one weakness on defense at the moment may be at the middle linebacker position. Our starting senior MLB, Jamar Chaney, went down in the first game with a broken leg/ankle, and will miss the rest of the season. He was lead the teams in tackles last year.

2. On the surface, your offense seems to be struggling. Can you describe the "system" that Miss St runs? How would you gameplan against your offense if you were a defensive coordinator?

It is supposedly a West Coast style offense. If you can cover our receivers, force our QB out of the pocket, and block the running lanes, you have pretty much got our offense beat.

The offense is probably the most frustrating part of the team for most of our fans. Our strong point is running the ball. It always has been. We have great running backs in Anthony Dixon and Christian Ducre, as well as freshman Robert Elliot. If our offensive line is having problems opening the running lanes, or we get behind in a game, we seem to abandon the run without hesitation.

3. Who are the key players that Tech fans need to worry the most about on offense and/or defense?

On defense, Derek Pegues is just all over the field. It is not uncommon for him to make a tackle at the line from his free safety position. Keith Fitzhugh is great in the strong safety slot as well.

On offense, our 2 best players are probably Anthony Dixon and Christian Ducre. Dixon is a power runner who will line up and just run over you. Ducre has more finesse to his running style, but isn't afraid to hit you either.

4. What is the general mood of Mississippi State fans in terms of where the program is headed under S.Croom?

I think the honeymoon is just about over. A majority of the fans knew the kind of shape the program was in after Jackie Sherrill retired, and were willing to give Croom plenty of time to rebuild it properly. He looked to be on track to do that last year. Most fans would probably like to see a change at offensive coordinator. It is also unclear how much of the play calling is coming straight from the OC and how much of it is being changed by Croom on the sideline.

Johnson was asked on his Sunday teleconference about his decision to go for it on 4th-and-7 from the Georgia Tech 34 with 2:24 left. The Jackets trailed 20-17.

He said that while watching a replay of the game, he heard the TV announcers questioning the move, too.

"I think you’ve got to try to win the game," he said.

"The guys who do the game, they’re morons…I don’t worry about what they say."

Now, here's what Johnson said about it:

"The story that came out about the announcers, and this and that........... I didn't even watch the TV replay. I don't have time to watch the TV replay. That was something that our friends at the paper made up."

"What happened was on Sunday, they called and asked about going for it on 4th down at the end of the game. What I said was that there was 2:24 left - 144 seconds is how I had broken it down in my mind......... 40 second play clock.......... we had one timeout. Now, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if you punt the ball and you hold them on 3 downs........ let's say they run 5 seconds off for each play.... you take your timeout...... they punt it back........ you're probably going to get it right where you had it......... and you gonna have less than 20 seconds to try and win the game............. so I've got 6 yards to make on 4th down, or I've got 40 yards to make in 20 seconds with no timeouts. That wasn't a hard decision to me. So that's what went through my thought process in trying to win the game."

"When I explained why I went for it (to the AJC reporters on the call), they said - well, even the TV announcers said that was a bad call........ I said - the same TV announcers that said we shouldn't go for two when the score is 17-15?......... the guy said "yeah"......... I said - well, if they said that, then they're morons.............. which was a poor choice of words. I should have said "misinformed". It's not like I held a press conference to say I rushed home to watch the TV replay..... So that was kind of blown out of proportion. Trust me, I won't let the TV guys tell me what to do on 4th down. "

Wes Durham's final shot to Johnson:

Wes - "I want to preface it that it's the TV guys that are the morons"

PJ - "Most of the time"

Wes - "Yeah..... Oh..... most of the time.... ok" (to laughs in the background)

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Well, we're 3 weeks in on the GTSB College Football Pick'em Challenge. Here's the overall leaderboard:

Overall Standings Through Week 3

Rank

Selection

W-L

Pts

1

GTKirk99's picks

29-7

215

2

VegasJacket's picks

30-6

211

3

PCooper

30-6

206

3

ARCHER_DAVE's picks

31-5

206

5

augustabuzz's picks

27-9

205

6

GTPOJE's picks

28-8

204

6

Blue Pants's picks

29-7

204

6

greenbrier's picks

29-7

204

9

sealegs's picks

29-7

203

9

willwc's Picks

29-7

203

11

Koriasneeeeeegro's picks

29-7

202

12

magicode's picks

28-8

201

13

Good Buzz' picks

28-8

200

13

tsrich's picks

28-8

200

13

GTBlogScott's picks

27-9

200

13

rach8347's picks

28-8

200

13

sockerdude32's picks

30-6

200

18

Zach

27-9

199

18

JiggyMcBee's picks

27-9

199

18

theGTgent

28-8

199

18

GTCardinal's picks

28-8

199

22

taverenGT's picks

27-9

198

22

Mark's picks

28-8

198

22

gtNC's picks

28-8

198

22

Ben

30-6

198

22

cpajacket's picks

29-7

198

Congrats to GTKirk99 for his stellar picking and confidence point choices. VegasJacket is close behind, but these two guys have built a slight lead.

What it shows you is how important those confidence points become. If you get a game wrong, you don't want it to cost you more than 5 or 6 points, or you really start dropping in the standings. I'm 27-9 overall picking games, but I'm tied for 13th place out of 173 people total, with 200 points.

For example, this week there were 12 games, and I went 8-4. I got my points for #12, 11, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4. So I missed out on all my lowest three confidence picks (#1,2,3), in addition to #9 and #7. Overall, I'm 27-9, but there a lot of people who have a better record picking games (like "SimpleGT" who is also 27-9, but finds himself in 133rd place with only 170 points).

I've locked the games in for this week, although they're not available yet for picking. In addition to the ACC slate and UGAg, I added Bama/Ark, Fl/Tenn and LSU/Auburn. I thought about Navy/Rutgers, but decided 12 games was enough.